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The US great plains over the last two hundred years in some places went from two feet or more of topsoil covered with with Prairie grass, Native Americans, and Buffalo to now more like six inches of topsoil mostly due to atrocious soil farming practices by the European invaders more akin to strip mining than stewardship. That is a lot of carbon loss.
http://bigprairieprepress.com/...
"The farming practices of early settlers caused erosion of the topsoil. By the late 1870's the topsoil had vanished in the center of the prairie and the settlers who farmed there moved out to its edges. This was the beginning of the process that would create the Big Prairie Desert. This pattern of land use, dry conditions and soil erosion is what caused the dust bowl that was begining at about the same time in states further west."

Related (although perhaps an underestimate of the total loss):
http://boingboing.net/2011/05/...
"These pillars --- located outside a rest area off Highway 80 in Adair County, Iowa -- represent the topsoil Iowa has lost since large-scale farming began 150 years ago. In the 19th century, Iowa had 14-16 inches of topsoil. Today, it has just 6-8 inches of the stuff, and more is being lost all the time. The irony: The very farms that are depleting the topsoil desperately need it, too. "

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...
"Although the figure is frequently being revised upwards with new discoveries, over 2,700 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon is stored in soils worldwide, which is well above the combined total of atmosphere (780 Gt) or biomass (575 Gt), most of which is wood. Carbon is taken out of the atmosphere by plant photosynthesis; about 60 Gt annually is incorporated into various types of soil organic matter (SOM) including surface litter; about 60 Gt annually is respired or oxidized from soil.[2] "

So, three-quarters of more of the carbon-rich top soil of the center of an entire continent (North America) was lost, much of it a century ago. That I think may help explain some global climate changes even more than recent fossil fuel use.

From:
http://people.oregonstate.edu/...
"When we lose soil, we are losing a resource that is, for practical purposes and human timespans, essentially non-renewable. An inch of soil takes between 200 - 1000 years to form, yet it can be swept away in a few seasons."

Ways to create topsoil faster included organic farming (focusing on adding organic matter to the soil) and remineralization from ground-up rock dust.
http://remineralize.org/

Still, maybe without all the extra carbon in the air we'd already be in another mini ice age?

There's an app for that:

http://boingboing.net/2010/04/...

http://boingboing.net/2013/01/...

Inner City Men

Key difference is that your premiums would have been adjusted upwards or policy canceled whenever your health has deteriorated.

Which is what happened to Brandon Boyer.

http://boingboing.net/2014/03/...
Humana screws Brandon Boyer for $100K worth of cancer bills - help him pay them
Cory Doctorow at 12:00 pm Fri, Mar 7, 2014

Our good pal Brandon "Offworld" Boyer has cancer. Lucky for Brandon, he signed up for medical insurance with Humana not long before he was diagnosed. Unlucky for him, Humana has decided unilaterally not to cover his cancer treatments and has stuck him with with a $100,000 bill.

They also tracked people by smell: http://boingboing.net/2007/07/...

Current German government is doing the same thing: http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

Letting the market handle things led to the situation we now face with DRM preventing people from making choices (highlighting how freedom of choice is so often a scam). This isn't the first instance of DRM providing no benefit to the user (eBook DRM leads to publishers and distributors taking away legally obtained copies of DRM'd eBooks like Amazon.com did in 2012 or making it possible to electronically enforce restrictions one could never get away with in paper books should the DRM proprietor so choose). The issue is not whether a proprietor has or hasn't used DRM to accomplish such a thing, the issue is that DRM grants someone or some organization the power to enforce restrictions like these, restrictions that should not exist. DefectiveByDesign.org doesn't seem to have problems coming up with plenty of other examples of how customers lose with DRM. DRM examples show us that word does not "get around pretty quickly" nor do monopolies "die a miserable death". Today there are people defending the idea of making it easier to get DRM into HTML5 instead of rejecting it out of hand based on principled opposition and experience. If things were as bad as you claim no business would bother with DRM, DRM would be rejected out of hand.

I think this situation is much better understood by looking at this in terms of a minimum acceptable interoperability; something akin to environmental law (recognizing one can't negotiate everything they need on their own so we need to work together to set acceptable standards that let us get what we need) instead of a transactional basis (one-on-one interactions where each user is on their own to negotiate a better arrangement where it's likely no one user can muster the resources to effectively challenge the proprietor). Owner's rights should enter here as well: one should be able to use whatever they want with their Keurig device including less expensive beverage pods than what Keurig sells.

Here in Spain one sent sms costs about 0.10 to 0.15 € and 0.30 € if it's a mms (there is no charge for receiving). There are some plans with unlimited sms, but they appeared only recently because of the huge popularity of whatsapp here. From my stats I have sent ~5k messages (and I'm not an very active user), so whatsapp has saved me ~500€ in ridiculous expesive sms (SMS data rate is 4x more expensive than data from the Hubble).

It also supports a lot of things sms don't and does a lot better the ones that sms/mms do. I'm also worried about the future, I was worried before because of the (almost null) security of the protocol, but here as I said is almost an standard, it seems a very difficult task to change minds. Line tried it last year with commercials on TV, but I think they didn't manage to scrap a lot of users, and IMHO Line is a ver big and slow application to be able to compete.

Snowden clearly broke the law. NSA, not so clear.

Why NSA phone-records spying is totally, utterly illegal

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/29/nsa-phone-records-spying-is-to.html/

Just Google "movie theaters confiscating cell phones" and read all about it. It was a pretty common thing to do around and before 2009, apparently it's still a common thing to do for special screenings. From 2009 http://gizmodo.com/5314778/no-... http://boingboing.net/2009/07/... And these were from just 2012 http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards... http://www.avvo.com/legal-answ...

Quietnet: Simple chat program using near ultrasonic frequencies.

"Simple chat program using near ultrasonic frequencies. Works without Wifi or Bluetooth and won't show up in a pcap.

Note: If you can clearly hear the send script working then your speakers may not be high quality enough to produce sounds in the near ultrasonic range.
Usage

run python send.py in one terminal window and python listen.py in another. Text you input into the send.py window should appear (after a delay) in the listen.py window.

Warning: May annoy some animals and humans."[1]

https://github.com/Katee/quietnet
[1] https://kate.io/
via: http://boingboing.net/2014/01/11/quietnet-near-ultrasonic-mess.html

The claim that the Canadian government is "just" digitizing them appears to be false. Instead they are burning and throwing them in the dumpster: Ref 1. Ref 2 Also, these documents are about the natural environment or climate science which the Conservatives (big C) have attacked, in part by muzzling scientists. These documents are going to a murky bottom at the bottom of a lake so to speak. Maybe somebody should be properly digitizing them though, in which case I would agree with your "Meh." statement.

I'll tell you what this is all about:

http://boingboing.net/2013/10/11/w3cs-drm-for-html5-sets-the.html

Soon, all compliant browsers will have to be opaque, in order to have DRM that will protect Netflix and other streaming services. Independent browsers will disappear. Open source browsers will be a big hole in the plan to completely lock down the internet once and for all and cannot be allowed to exist. Irish politicians have learned their globalization lessons well and know on which side their bread is buttered. He may not be the most eloquent advocate, but he knows what the agenda is.

We are very close to the end of the internet as we know it. I've long said that the internet is turning into cable television. Now the transformation is almost complete.

http://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/72759474218/we-are-huxleying-ourselves-into-the-full-orwell

Quietnet: Simple chat program using near ultrasonic frequencies.

"Simple chat program using near ultrasonic frequencies. Works without Wifi or Bluetooth and won't show up in a pcap.

Note: If you can clearly hear the send script working then your speakers may not be high quality enough to produce sounds in the near ultrasonic range.
Usage

run python send.py in one terminal window and python listen.py in another. Text you input into the send.py window should appear (after a delay) in the listen.py window.

Warning: May annoy some animals and humans."[1]

https://github.com/Katee/quietnet
[1] https://kate.io/
via: http://boingboing.net/2014/01/11/quietnet-near-ultrasonic-mess.html

According to where I originally read this (Boing Boing) it says he was.

However, I now see this at the bottom of the Wired article:

Update: Rogers confirmed to WIRED that the vulnerability he found was a SQL-injection vulnerability. He says the police have not contacted him and that he only learned heâ(TM)d been reported to the police from the journalist who wrote the story for The Age.

My apologies, title should read someone: Victorian Transportation Department Calls Police After Teen Reports SQL Injection Vulnerability

`sudo mods edit title`

Publishers have started to configure digital restrictions management for e-books to "wear out" after being lent 26 times. See articles on About, BoingBoing, and The Digital Shift.

There an interesting video the other day http://boingboing.net/2013/12/31/jacob-appelbaums-must-watch.html I believe he mentions the NSA and hacking wireless routers, perhaps they created it.
additional several router models are susceptible to a hack so easy it's ridiculous, namely adding a certain user agent string to your browser lets you in.

I personally don't use wireless at home any longer,

http://boingboing.net/2013/12/31/jacob-appelbaums-must-watch.html

I believe he was referencing this recent story about the digitized copies of public-domain works being copyrighted by the digitizer.

Uh, yeah, I'm gonna need some proof on that. Everything I've read about US prisons have indicated that they're a barbaric hell of inhumanity and sadism. Given the current political and legal climate, that's what I'm inclined to believe until evidenced otherwise.

.
Wow, you really don't know do you? Well here you are:

--------------

Minimum security prisons no longer as nice as you claim them to be.

Is that so?

http://www.askmen.com/fine_living/top_10/13_top_10.html

Oooo, and look right there: LOMPOC is number 8 on the list...

Given the perfect climate and time to spend outside, the bars are barely a bother as you plot your corporate comeback. Former home to Ivan Boesky and the Watergate guys, youâ(TM)ll be surrounded by a eucalyptus grove in a great wine region not far from Santa Barbara. Itâ(TM)s a pity the tennis courts were removed as a PR gesture to critics who felt guests at this luxury prison had it too easy, but (the good) life continues with the baseball field and volleyball courts.

Oh, and this: "Former inmate's description of minimum security Federal prison: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll..."

http://boingboing.net/2012/10/23/former-inmates-description-o.html

Yeah, "Real1/1" Federal minimum security is tough business.

Minimum security prisons no longer as nice as you claim them to be.

Is that so?

http://www.askmen.com/fine_living/top_10/13_top_10.html

Oooo, and look right there: LOMPOC is number 8 on the list...

Given the perfect climate and time to spend outside, the bars are barely a bother as you plot your corporate comeback. Former home to Ivan Boesky and the Watergate guys, youâ(TM)ll be surrounded by a eucalyptus grove in a great wine region not far from Santa Barbara. Itâ(TM)s a pity the tennis courts were removed as a PR gesture to critics who felt guests at this luxury prison had it too easy, but (the good) life continues with the baseball field and volleyball courts.

Oh, and this: "Former inmate's description of minimum security Federal prison: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll..."

http://boingboing.net/2012/10/23/former-inmates-description-o.html

Yeah, "Real1/1" Federal minimum security is tough business.

Tell the school to kiss your ass. They don't have the power to say how your kid gets to school or how they get home. They will certainly try to pretend that they do and will make a bunch of noise. But that's about all they can do.

Some will have you arrested. This dad wasn't allowed to walk into the school and pick up his kid. Instead, he was expected to stand outside in a line with vehicles for 40 minutes.

NOPE! Gamers HATE women! GAME CULTURE IS SEXIST! Ugh.

Um... yeah it is. (âoeThe sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting game community, itâ(TM)s not the fighting game community") It's also hyper macho, homophobic and racist, you retarded nigger cocksucking faggot pussy.

You can "get tired of this shit" all you want. Hell, I'm also "tired of this shit" too. I can't believe that we're still having these conversations, because people like you refuse to acknowledge what's perfectly obvious.

We must be the same age since you talk about learning to program basic on a Apple //e. For me, it was a C=64. You say it cost you a "hundred lawns." Fine. I saved for mine as well, but I bet your daddy drove you to K-Mart to buy it, just like mine did. (Yes kiddies, K-Mart sold computers back in the day.) "No one could prevent [you]"? Yeah right. I'm sure your parents could have, but they didn't. I will tell you this, you existed in a cultural milieu that encouraged programming. Home computers were cool status symbol in white suburbia. BYTE. Compute! ENTER, Even 321 Contact Magazine had programming examples. Today, where are those programming milieus? The same places they were 30 years ago: rich (i.e. white, asian, and indian) suburban schools. Face it, only the middle class had the disposable income to spend on these electronic contrivances. The question is, who is encouraging potential underrepresented engineers? Who is even telling them that programming is even a possibility for them? People are influenced by what they see.

You say that women won't make sacrifices to produce a game on time. So what are you saying? Women are quitters? Is that why girls are just as interested in STEM in grade and middle school, but then drop out in high school and college? Or is it, that they simply don't want to put up with the shit they're subjected to on a daily basis. I've been in the meetings where "the girl's" judgement is habitually questioned. The meetings where she stands up for herself, and then afterwards the men say she's either "PMSing" or is a "bitch."

You say calling some one sexist is slander. I say calling you sexist, isn't, because your post is evidence enough. You don't even seen your own white male privilege.

For fuck's sake, open your goddamn eyes. Read something that challenges your presumptions. Do something intelligent for once.

Why did the NYT let a report called 'Walt Mossberg' write newb-level electronics reviews, rather than pushing him in the direction of being a hard hitting, hard drinking, crime-beat reporter with a tolerance for risk and a taste for vigilante justice?

(earlier, on BoingBoing...)

I knew that Walt Mossberg (ever squandering his name's potential as a hard-hitting crime-beat reporter with a taste for vigilante justice), liked his tech fuzzy and consumer focused; but this list confirms it.

Really going for those mod points, ain'tcha?

The reason Stross' opinion might be worth paying attention to is his writing often revolves around economics, and people like Economics Nobellist Paul Krugman think he's solid on it: http://boingboing.net/2009/08/11/charlie-stross-and-p.html

The thing is, it's been just as much of a problem since, well, just about forever. Think back to how they railed against DVD burners, CD burners, the VCR, hell even cassette tapes. And yet the industry survived all of them by releasing content. You want to know what's killing the industry? Go read this article. Now, how enthusiastic do you think your average person's going to be about buying content when they've just been reminded that the companies "selling" it to them will jerk it away the moment it suits them? I sure wouldn't put my hard-earned money into that, at least not at the prices they want to charge. Charge me the kind of price the video rental place would charge and I'll think about it.

The music and movie industries are in decline simply because they won't provide content their customers want in the form their customers want it. And of course that results in them going out of business. You don't want to sell what people want to buy, don't be surprised when people take their business elsewhere. It doesn't take an MBA to figure that one out.

In fact it's only the Guardian that mentions the words "temporary" and "accidentally". Stands to reason that regaining access in July is only a temporary loss, after all.

...[Amazon] gave him a different reason: "Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and 'at this time they've pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.'" - The Guardian

..."Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and 'at this time they've pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.' In other words, Amazon sold me a Christmas special my kids can't watch during the run up to Christmas. It'll be available in July though!" - Customer as quoted by Boing Boing

It's in my nature to believe what a company first tells a single angry customer over what they try to say in a PR backpedal.

Clear signal that they are still lying. The director of the NSA had no problem nor consequences for lying to the congress, and Obama had no problem lying to the people multiple times. And you are trusting everything to people that intentionally is lying to you, and trying at all cost to catch the person that could inform you what the truth behind all those lies?

http://boingboing.net/2009/01/06/naughty-speed-camera.html

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/12/dont-like-speed-cameras-use-them-to-punk-your-enemies/

This is MA we're talking about, where they've even passed a law making it illegal to record police.

Many (most?) cruisers that I see troll around for speeding tickets. Yet every time I see one on the road - it's going 80 or more, slowing down once in a while to wait for a car in front to get out of the way. This would be plainly obvious form the GPS recordings. But then again, I bet there's a law in MA that allows them to speed as much as they like, as long as they bring home the requisite number of tickets.

I've lived outside US where police was terribly corrupt, and even MA cops are a godsend by comparison. But it's shit like this - being unnecessarily aggressive and above the law - that turns a good situation into a bad one.

Former member of the UK government's drugs advisory panel, until some pol fired him for pointing out (correctly) that the health risks of horseback riding outweigh those of doing ecstasy. He's the author of Drugs Without the Hot Air, a fantastic book. http://boingboing.net/2012/06/20/drugs-without-the-hot-air.html

Try asking anyone under 30 if they know what the phrase "Papers Please!" denotes

It's just two words... It's a lot of things.

It's when the Military place soldiers in a natural disaster area such as New Orleans after Katrina requiring you to show military ID or proof of government authorization, to avoid arrest, or having vehicles impounded

It's an attack onAmerican birthright citizenship

It's two words that succinctly describe America's dark future.

Personal and Professional Encounters with Surveillance

anti-state.com: May I See Your Papers Please?

It's what Mr. Hiibel of Nevada went to jail for refusing to comply with

It's what police do now to ordinary people minding their own business.

It's congress work on the REAL ID act

It's a name given to a section of an Arizona law upheld by the Supreme court.

It's the name of a complaint against changes the US is making starting this Fall 2013 to further restrict the free travel of Americans and greatly increase the difficulty of US citizens getting passports

It's the name of a dystopian video game about communist immigration control.

It's the name of an anti-TSA blog

It's a request you comply with when asked by the police; otherwise, you face immediate arrest.

• Texas 77 year old Grandmother arrested after refusing to show ID
• Police arrest for refusing to show ID while on private property
• Exhibit 1
• Exhibit 2: According to the Supreme Court, the police may arrest for failure to identify
• Arrested at Circuit City for refusing to show ID: "It all started when I refused to show my receipt to the loss prevention employee at Circuit City, and it ended when a police officer arrested me for refusing to provide my driver's license."
• I follow the blog of a guy who walked across the country (California to New York) last year. He was arrested in Greencastle, Indiana last summer, after a prison worker called the police to report him as a suspicious person after they exchanged words while he was walking past the prison complex.
• Florida Cops Tase man for refusing to show ID
• Refusal to show id in Georgia (arrest)
• Man in Arizona arrested for refusing to surrender firearm to officers who refused to show their own ID

I hope this doesn't mean we'll start getting like a telekinetic Hitler or something right? I mean we already had Teller and his wacko theories like "Plowshare" and he was supposedly a smart guy, right?

If we get rid of the roads, we might stand a chance at ending the Drug War.

If we get rid of contractors to the Government, that profit from this "war" - and the Pols who maintain the security of their power by perpetrating a "war' against their own people...

"DRUG WAR - HIDDEN HISTORY"

$250 for a headset is nothing, really. A good pair of headphones can easily run you $500 (that's considered mid-tier).

A good volume knob can easily run you $485.

If you spend $500 on a pair of headphones and you aren't a professional musician (or someone else that works with audio in a professional capacity), you're about as smart as the guy that buys that volume knob.

But their immortal souls are still safe, presumably?

http://boingboing.net/2010/04/16/video-game-shoppers.html

And you know what else is exciting? Since this find in Nigeria, there have been reports of 106 episodes found in Ethiopia (clearly, the preservation of civilization requires getting as far away from the BBC as possible): 106 doctor who episodes uncovered

It is not clear that this Ethiopian 106 that they're talking about is entirely composed of "lost" episodes, so I would guess that it is not (despite the way this story is billed in some circles) but it's entirely likely that there are a few more the ones on the list of the 97 officially "still lost" list.

Attention slashdot: an update to this story, adding the Daily Mirror link, would not be out-of-line.

Keep in mind that the Red Cross threw a snit over health kits in Neverwinter Nights among others so this is really par for the course for them.

Again with the "we don't understand" argument.

Isn't that the point of simulating complex systems? To gain understanding of them? Or are you suggesting that we only simulate systems that are well understood, not to understand them, but just for the fuck of it?

Why do we need theories to deal with that level of complexity? Do the laws of physics break down when there's a lot of particles to simulate? How is this not simply an issue of scaling up computing infrastructure to support simulations of larger data sets?

if you think we know essentially nothing about most of the cells in the brain, I find it odd that IBM has been simulating everything from neocortical columns to cat brains in-house. Perhaps you should drop them a line explaining to them that they don't know what they're doing.

Regarding "experimental data", I don't understand why we'd need anything more than an accurate map of the brain's structure, and an understanding of the laws of physics that govern the interaction between the brain's constituent particles. Perhaps you can explain to me why the laws of physics don't apply to the human brain?

I think all of the people he fired & the projects he gutted point to Elop making it worse.

This guy is a cut & dry corporate psychopath. Make no bones about it. Juniper, Adobe, he's been fucking with companies his entire career.

http://boingboing.net/2011/02/14/nokias-radical-ceo-h.html

Larry might want to proceed with caution because some patent trolls would have us believe that calling them patent trolls is a "hate crime" and therefore punishable by a huge fine payable to said patent trolls.

http://boingboing.net/2013/09/17/patent-trolls-lumen-view-ca.html

> Some recent uses of my fingerprints in which I
> had no real say...

Disneyland requires a biometric fingertip scan at the park entrances, ostensibly to deter fraudulent passes. Here's a 2008 blog post from Cory Doctorow:
http://boingboing.net/2008/03/15/fingertip-biometrics.html.

I was surprised to encounter this on a recent family vacation, and even more surprised to learn that it had been happening for years with no backlash from park visitors.

Biometric scanning for a theme park? Really?

As pointed out by others the problem with biometric passwords is once it's compromised you're S.O.L. If someone manages to record your brainwave pattern how do you go about getting a new one? If someone gets a copy of your fingerprints how do you get new fingerprints? Etc....

The point is not that they won't, but that they could, thats the key of being in control of the information. If that information could be gathered also in another way it would be checked out, Will them be willing to do it? I doubt it.

In the other hand, when the NSA is ordered to give key parts of its information, they lie, no matter what prosecutors and judges say, in fact when they lied to the congress (that should be worse), didn't ended in jail, in fact, got even more control over possible threats on them. So there is not even the "would be unfair to them" moral concern on releasing faithful information to them that only you control and can tell if is the right one or not. Regarding the terrorism part, the NSA admitted that none of this surveillance ever prevented a terrorist attack, while they clearly targetted Google, Petrobras and others, this is by far more about protecting and empowering corporations (by stealing trade secrets, or even sabotaging, competition) than caring about people.

A prevailing attitude in Europe is with a decline of civilization, government, and social order, people will turn to animalistic barbarism within days.

No, it isn't cultural, other than a form of "elite panic" where the rich and powerful believe that society is only held together by the institutions that they themselves are in charge of. It is really self-fullfilling prophecy that tends to wreck the natural instinct of most humans to help each other in times of crisis.

Here's a taste of the problem:
http://boingboing.net/2013/04/14/elite-panic-why-rich-people-t.html

Some discussion of what did and did not happen in Haiti after the earthquake, by Slashdot's own Johnathan Katz:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/30/what-haiti-can-teach-us-about-the-storm.html

Really, this is old news. Just ask Jacob Appelbaum.

Far, far more frightening though is the possibility that you may find yourself shipped off to a foreign country (Syria say) to be tortured and imprisoned. What happened to Maher Arar (and others) is more than enough to make me avoid crossing the US border for any reason.

You may believe you're innocent, and that there's no reason why you would have problems, but so did he.

we are really, really without any way out if we dont start inundating them with noise...
please, people, install at once trackmenot or paranoid browsing

http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/
http://boingboing.net/2013/08/18/paranoid-browsing-anti-profil.html

His gender identity issues were visible in the chat logs with Lamo: http://boingboing.net/2010/06/20/was-alleged-wikileak.html

That information is supposed to be included in the error message. From Tim Bray's original proposal for the 451 error code, as reported here:

Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in the response body, of the details of the legal restriction; which legal authority is imposing it, and what class of resources it applies to.

This is particularly amusing because such game theory examples have been proved to only apply to WEIRD (white educated industrialised rich and democratic) nations.

Quite possibly not only WEIRD, but perhaps only for college students from those countries as well. From What happens when actual prisoners play The Prisoner's Dilemma?:

And here's the surprise: Compared to college students, the prisoners actually cooperated with each other much more often.